Peter Rabbit had seen a very strange thing. It was strange to Peter, anyway. It gave him something to think about, and this, I am sure you will agree, was a most excellent thing, for it kept him out of mischief for a while. He had been over to the Smiling Pool for a call on Jerry Muskrat and had just started back for the dear Old Briar-patch when he chanced to look over in the direction of the Big River. Coming straight towards him, but high in the air, was a big bird, a bird with broad wings. Peter didn't have to look twice to know that it was a member of the Hawk family. At first he thought it was Redtail. Then he caught a flash of white, and he thought it was Whitetail the Marsh Hawk, in spite of the fact that it didn't fly like him. Peter didn't stop to think of that. It was enough for him that a member of the Hawk family was headed that way, and he didn't care a twitch of his funny little tail which member it was. He felt that the stomach of one was quite as undesirable a place for Peter Rabbit as the stomach of another, and he had no intention of filling any if he could help it.  
He remembered that there was an old house of Johnny Chuck's under the Big Hickory-tree on the bank of the Smiling Pool, and he wasted no time in getting there, lipperty-lipperty-lip, as fast as he could go. He would stay there until the way was clear to get home to the dear Old Briar-patch. As soon as he was safe in the old house of Johnny Chuck, he turned and poked his head out of the doorway. He wanted to see if any one would be caught. He hoped not, but if any one was caught, he wanted to see. You know Peter never misses anything if he can help it. On came Mr. Hawk, and when he was right over the Smiling Pool, he turned and made a short circle high in the air. Then Peter saw that he had a white waist-coat and was a stranger.
 
"I wonder who he is?" thought Peter, staring very hard. "He's bigger than either Redtail or Whitetail. I hope he isn't going to make his home here, because we have trouble enough as it is."
 
Suddenly Mr. Hawk paused high up in the air, then closed his wings and shot straight down like an arrow. Plunge! Peter couldn't believe his own eyes. Mr. Hawk actually had disappeared in the Smiling Pool! A second later there was a great splashing, and out of the water rose Mr. Hawk, flapping his great wings heavily, scattering spray in all directions. Up, up he went, and then Peter saw that in his great claws was a fish. Peter watched him fly away with the fish, and when he felt that it was quite safe to do so, he came out. Over on the end of an old log among the bulrushes sat Jerry Muskrat just where Peter had left him. It was very plain that Jerry hadn't been the least bit frightened by Mr. Hawk. Peter couldn't understand it. His eyes fairly popped out of his head with excitement and curiosity.
 
"Who was that?" he asked eagerly.
 
"That? Why, that was Plunger the Osprey, though some people call him Fish Hawk," replied Jerry. "I thought everybody knew him. Why did you run away, Peter? He wouldn't hurt you."
 
"Huh! I wouldn't trust any Hawk!" snapped Peter.
 
"Which goes to show how little you know!" retorted Jerry Muskrat. "Plunger never bothers anybody but the fish, but he surely is a terror to them. Old Mother Nature knew what she was doing when she made fishermen out of that family, didn't she?"
 
"She certainly did, though I've never heard how she came to do it. How did it happen, Jerry?" Peter was doing some fishing himself. He was fishing for a story.
 
Jerry Muskrat grinned. "Think you'll sleep any better if I tell you?" he inquired.
 
Peter grinned back and nodded. So Jerry Muskrat told him this story:
 
"Way back in the days when the world was young, and the great-great-ever-so-great-grandfathers of all the little people of the Green Meadows and the Green Forest of today were being started out in life by Old Mother Nature, they had everything to learn. The Great World was a new place, and they were new in it. No one knew exactly his place or what was expected of him, and Old Mother Nature was too busy to be bothered with questions. She expected each one to work out for himself a way in which to make himself useful, or at least to take care of himself, without bothering her. If he couldn't do that, she didn't want him around at all, and the sooner something happened to him the better. So the Great World began to be peopled with birds and animals.
 
"It didn't take them ............